December 4, 2016 - 22:38
Kate Weiler
Re-evaluating Remedies: Treatment as a Loss of Agency
The stigma surrounding mental illness and its treatment is becoming increasingly present in the world today, and this is reflected both in Ursula LeGuin’s short story ‘Vaster than Empires and More Slow’ and Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan’s graphic novel As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You can do to Stay in Denial. In the first piece, one of the main characters is thought of to be “cured” of his autism, but he is alienated from his peers because of the way he acts due to said treatment. In As the World Burns, Kranti visits a psychiatrist at the request of a friend, and rejects the hasty and unfair diagnosis and medication he tries to force upon her. Osden is a clear example of a character supposedly cured of mental illness, and Kranti is indicative of a character who defies attempted treatment. While Osden accepts and goes through treatment for his mental illness, he is left at a definite disadvantage, as he is generally hated by others, and ultimately loses agency because of it. Kranti, who does not accept treatment, gains agency, and ends up surrounded by allies and filled with a sense of empowerment, because of this decision.
Osden was supposedly cured of his autism through an extensive treatment, even living with his doctor, Dr. Hammergeld, until he was eighteen years old. “The therapy,” one of his colleagues notes, “was completely successful” (Leguin 150). Due to his treatment, “his autistic defense has been unlearned, [so] he resorts to an aggressive-defense mechanism, a response in kind to the aggression which you have un-wittingly projected onto him” (150). In this way, Osden is an empath, and he can read other’s emotions and takes them on as his own; this often causes him to act in an aggressive, hostile manner. His peers, thus, describe him with many negative connotations throughout the short story, with adjectives ranging from “disastrous” (153) to “insane” (150) to “intolerable” (150) to “bastard” (151) to “evil” (156)”. Obviously, he is not well liked by those who know him. One of his crew members, Haito, uses this feeling of distaste towards Osden to question the therapy people say ‘cured’ him. “’Why,’” she asked, ‘”if he suffers from our hostility, does he increase it by constant and insults? I can’t say I think much of Dr. Hammergeld’s cure, really…autism might be preferable,’” since, at least with autism, one can form relationships with others, something Osden seems incapable of (151). He wants to be left alone, and when this does not happen – he’s living in tight quarters with eight other people, so it virtually never happens – he lashes out, seemingly irrationally. Osden, thus, is a character who is displayed as this miraculous case study, the first to be cured of autism; however, the way he acts indicates anything but a cured, soundly functioning human being. This indicates that by being treated with a goal of getting rid of his autism, Osden was more harmed and left at a greater disadvantage than if he had been let be.
Kranti, on the other hand, goes to a psychiatrist for a short time in the duration of As the World Burns, at the request of her best friend. When she is asked if she feels she is not well-adjusted, and answers that she is unsure, the psychiatrist automatically responds, “’Then I’ll just write a prescription,” his notepad reading ‘useless drugs’ (Jensen 46). He wishes to treat Kranti, even though he has no idea yet what could be wrong in terms of her mental well-being. He explains to her that the drugs will “alter the chemistry of your brain, to smooth out the ups and downs of everyday life, enhancing enjoyment and productivity,’” indicating that the goal of medication is to improve one’s productivity and worth in society (47). Kranti, forever the skeptic, does not accept this idea. She lashes back, sarcastically commenting that “’All these bad feelings will magically vanish with a little pill, and I’ll be happy and adjusted to this gruesome reality, this ravaged planet and suffering people? My sorrow, my empathy, my caring, my sensitivity – you want to kill all that so I’ll be PRODUCTIVE, so I’ll be more useful to the big capitalist machine, do I have it right?’” (48). At this point, the psychiatrist has her labelled as ‘totally fucked up’ on his notepad, another note reminding him to prescribe a higher dosage than originally planned. According to this supposed medical professional, Kranti is “clearly paranoid, and a danger to self and others. She needs to be apprehended, for her own good and for the good of society” (57). Due to this horrific evaluation, Kranti, unlike Osden, rejects the medication, refuses help, and denies treatment, which ultimately works to her advantage.
Agency is defined as “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.” In “Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene,” Bruno Latour examines agency, something he views as the holy grail that each human being who wishes to make a difference must reach. Having agency, according to Latour, means having “meaning…for all agents, acting means having their existence, their subsistence, come from the future to the present…As long as they act, agents have meaning” (Latour 12). Agents must have the future in mind at all times, and act accordingly. Agents cannot take quick fixes to their problems or to those of the world; they must take action, as difficult as it may be, in order to better their situation and that of others. “Any possibility for discourse,” or positive change, “is due to the presence of agents in search of their existence” (12). By refusing treatment for what the psychiatrist hastily labels as mental illness, Kranti is elongating, complexifying, and taking on her search for her existence: her purpose in life, her potential, and her strengths and weaknesses. She feels empowered, thus, to take risks, expand her horizons, and make a positive change.
In Osden’s case, he is left with “’fear…only fear’” when placed in an unknown environment (Leguin 170). The only solution to this fear, he finds, is giving in to it. Thus, Osden takes “the fear into himself” and accepts it in order to transcend it (177). By doing this, he gives his “self to the alien, an unreserved surrender,” and loses any agency he had previously (177). Because of his treatment, and his subsequent ability to empathetically communicate with other entities – both those who can speak and those who cannot – he is destined to lose any and all agency he is capable of. Kranti, on the other hand, ends up using her fear as motivation to make a difference. At the end of the novel, she is seen joining up with others like her and taking action against her oppressors. Thus, she gains agency. Kranti’s defiance of societal norms of what is ‘acceptable’ regarding mental health and subsequent acceptance of who she is gives her the power to make a change, just as treatment stripped Osden of that ability. In this stark contrast, these two pieces of work make a bold statement about mental health and the use of remedies to change one’s mental status.
Works Cited
Jensen, Derrick, and Stephanie McMillan. As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial. Seven Stories Press, 2007.
Latour, Bruno. "Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene." New Literary History 45, 1 (Winter 2014): 1-18.
LeGuin, Ursula. "Vaster than Empires and More Slow." The Wind's Twelve Quarters: Short Stories. New York: Harper and Row, 1975. 148-178.